NOTE 2: [corrected] and updated 7-4-09- (Scroll to the end of the article): I’ve collected and posted here John Moffet’s 2 replies to my diary which was deleted and reposted as a comment on his article, and my 4 replies to him, which he did not respond to. Also posted here is the email I sent to Rob Kall, owner/publisher of OpEdNews.com, and his response; the main reason I got as involved in this as I did are:

I find some areas of agreement with Dr. Moffet; for instance, he says: “The only way to find out what really happened [on 9/11] is to have a large panel of independent researchers reopen the case, with access to the classified documents that would be needed to make a valid assessment of all the data.”

However, Dr. Moffett’s article is mainly devoted to attacking the Active Thermitic paper, in ways that are unjustified. For instance, Dr. Moffett says: “The subgroup of 911 Truthers who are advocating this particular [nanothermite] theory of the WTC collapse have declared victory over those advocating the controlled demolition theory, or the missiles disguised as planes theory, or the directed energy weapons theory, or even the secret nuclear reactors in the WTC basements theory, because they now have a “scientific paper published in a peer reviewed journal” to buttress their claims.”

The Active Thermitic paper simply documents nanothermite in the WTC dust; it doesn’t present a theory of how the towers were demolished (although the findings obviously support theories), and the presence of the red-gray thermitic chips doesn’t preclude the use of other types of explosives as well.

Regarding the holograms, mini-nukes and energy beams Moffett mentions; these are ideas for which no, or extremely flimsy evidence exists, and hardly any real people claim to believe them. It may be these ideas were invented in order to discredit the Truth Movement by association– in addition to pushing these bogus claims, some of their main proponents have also engaged in disruptive, divisive behavior and have subsequently been shunned by a large number of truth movement activists and orgs. Similarly, Dr. Moffett has tried to discredit the Active Thermitic paper by associating it with the now-discredited Open Information Science Journal.

Dr. Moffet also says: “It is not surprising that the public is not aware of the fact that the so-called Bentham Open Science publishing group is basically a vanity publication where anyone can publish a “peer reviewed scientific journal article” which is not actually peer reviewed.”

If Dr. Moffet were objective, he would have acknowledged that himself. And contrary to Dr. Moffet’s claim that it’s a “fact that the so-called Bentham Open Science publishing group is basically a vanity publication where anyone can publish a “peer reviewed scientific journal article” which is not actually peer reviewed,” The Open Chemical Physics Journal and 154 other Bentham journals are listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals operated by Lund University Libraries. Open Access is a fast growing model for peer-reviewed publication. Open Access generally means there are no fees to subscribe to the journals and papers are published online, so the entire world can read the papers. This vastly increases access, public knowledge and scrutiny of published findings. As there are no fees to subscribe, the financial support for journals’ existence comes from subsidies, the paper’s authors, or the Universities they’re associated with- as was the case with the Active Thermitic paper. Those responsible at these universities- Copenhagen U and BYU- also reviewed the paper.

There have been complaints about Bentham spamming people to submit papers and join Bentham journal editorial boards, but so far there have been no other claims that Bentham journals didn’t perform adequate peer-review of published papers. However, as a result of the hoax incident, there will be increased scrutiny on Bentham, and more examples may come to light.

The 2 editors at The Open Information Science Journal who accepted the hoax paper were right to resign, as the hoax paper was published on their watch. How can an “editor” have no control over what’s being published? Did they not even know they didn’t know what was going on at their own journal?

It seems likely this is the case with Marie-Paule Pileni, who resigned after she discovered the Active Thermitic paper had been published in The Open Chemical Physics Journal, of which she was Editor-in-Chief. She discredits herself in the statement that Dr. Moffet quoted; “I cannot accept that this topic is published in my journal. The article has nothing to do with physical chemistry or chemical physics, and I could well believe that there is a political viewpoint behind its publication. If anyone had asked me, I would say that the article should never have been published in this journal. Period.”

As Dr. Moffet says, “Despite supposedly being the chief editor, she had not been informed that the thermite article was going to be published in her journal.”

Pileni says “if anyone had asked me” – how can the “editor-in-chief” be unaware? Was she simply trading her name for a title and a paycheck, and paying no attention to what was being published at her journal?

In addition, she discredits herself with the claim that “the article has nothing to do with physical chemistry or chemical physics”; nanothermite has everything to do with physical chemistry and chemical physics, and the Active Thermitic paper documented various experiments with the physical and chemical properties of the red-gray chips.

And as Dr. Moffet should know, Pileni is reported by videnskab.dk to have said, “because the topic lies outside her field of expertise, she cannot judge whether the article in itself is good or bad.”

However, as documented at the above link, Pileni has an extensive background in chemical physics and physical chemistry- as well as with explosives- and she also has extensive connections to the defense industry. This may have more to do with her resignation- in any case, despite her insinuation, the quality of the paper has nothing to do with her resignation, as Pileni did not point out ANY flaws in it; and if Videnskab is correct, she claimed she “cannot judge whether the article in itself is good or bad.”

This hoax incident will no doubt bring even greater scrutiny on the Active Thermitic paper. If there are flaws, let them be pointed out. If there are none, let that be known as well. In any case, independent scientists should be confirming the presence of the red-gray chips in World Trade Center dust, and performing their own experiments on them. If the findings are confirmed, full criminal, congressional and international investigations, with public oversight, are called for- as people have been calling for, in increasing numbers, since the crimes of 9/11 happened.

Dr. Moffett supports a new 9/11 investigation, saying, “I don’t believe the official story of the 911 commission report, and in fact, neither do many members of the 911 commission” and “The only way to find out what really happened is to have a large panel of independent researchers reopen the case, with access to the classified documents that would be needed to make a valid assessment of all the data. In order to facilitate that happening, the 911 Truth Movement should stop squabbling over pet theories, and concentrate on getting a new investigation with subpoena power and the authorization to view classified documents started. This will take some serious Congressional lobbying by those interested parties. So leave your favorite theories at home, and press Congress for a new investigation.”

Do you know anything about scientific publishing? I suspect not. So to suggest that I am smearning someone when I point out problems with their work, and with their choice of journals to publish in, I am not smearing anyone. Please point out a single thing I said that could be called a smear.

I merely pointed out that the Bentham Group does not publish actual peer reviewed science articles. Did you go to the science web sites I linked to in my article? Of course not. If you had, you’d have to accuse a lot more scientists of “smearing” by association. To smear by association is to say that because Obama knows Reverend Wright, Obama agrees with everything that the Rev. writes or says. To discredit a vanity science publisher as not being credible, and therefore cast doubt on articles that are published there, happens every day in science. Is the Thermite article listed at PubMed Erik? Did you even check? What does it mean when a “scientific article” is not listed at PubMed? It means the journal is not considered legitimate, or worthy of consideration as a reliable source of scientific information. I think you need to read my article much more carefully, and read the articles I linked to as well. You should do some actual research on Bentham and then please get back to us with your findings.

and it appears access to my diaries and articles has been disabled- the diary has been posted as the above comment.

Thx to SwingDangler at 911Blogger for pointing out that i incorrectly said the hoax paper was published; it was accepted for publication, then withdrawn by the authors.

To John re the comment above about pointing out a smear; i used one of your quotes twice to document this:

“Dr. Moffet also says: “It is not surprising that the public is not aware of the fact that the so-called Bentham Open Science publishing group is basically a vanity publication where anyone can publish a “peer reviewed scientific journal article” which is not actually peer reviewed.”

Actually, as Dr. Moffet knows, if he’s looked into the hoax paper incident at all- the authors of the hoax paper also acknowledged; “From this one case, we cannot conclude that Bentham Science journals practice no peer review, only that it is inconsistently applied. Earlier this year, I reported on a case in which a nonsensical article submitted to another Bentham Science journal was rejected after going through peer review [1].” Open Access Publisher Accepts Nonsense Manuscript for Dollars”

Obviously, if Bentham journals are not all “vanity publication[s] where anyone can publish”, then to label them as such is a smear. However, John has not proven that even the single journal that has been shown to have accepted a hoax paper is a “vanity publication” where ANYONE can publish; so far a single instance of a failure to conduct a proper peer-review has been documented. Perhaps there are other incidents, and perhaps NONE of the papers published were legitimately peer-reviewed, but the experiment conducted by Scholarly Kitchen does not document that, and the authors don’t claim it does. In addition, the problem has only been documented at a SINGLE journal among the hundreds published by Bentham- as Scholarly Kitchen notes, another Bentham journal rejected the hoax paper for publication. They say this incident only proves the peer-reviewed process is applied inconsistently.

However, your article claims that no paper published in any Bentham journal can be said to be “peer-reviewed”. This is a smear, as it’s not backed up by the facts of the matter, so far as they have been established.

As i noted in my deleted diary, this incident will increase scrutiny of Bentham and more examples may come to light. However, even if papers have not been adequately peer-reviewed before publication, once published in an open access journal, they are open to peer-review by anyone, and if there are flaws they will be exposed.

So far, no one- at JREF or anywhere else- has pointed out any substantive flaws in the Active Thermitic paper- some have made a pretense of doing so. And none of the “debunkers” have performed any experiments on the dust themselves, that I know of- John, if you have any links showing that experiments have been done and gotten different results, please post them.

John says in the comment below: “I merely pointed out that the Bentham Group does not publish actual peer reviewed science articles. Did you go to the science web sites I linked to in my article? Of course not. If you had, you’d have to accuse a lot more scientists of “smearing” by association.”

Please- provide us with some quotes. John, you accuse me of not having read the articles, without basis; this is a smear. Re: the 3 articles you linked to; I read the NewScientist article linked from your article, and before I read your article I had already read the ScholarlyKitchen article- I quoted from it and linked to it from my deleted diary! And as ScholarlyKitchen was the source of the issue, I didn’t bother registering for read-access at the-scientist.

Here’s a quote from the NewScientist article, proving that even traditional journals that charge subscription fees make mistakes:

“What’s more, it seems that even some journals that charge readers for their content may be prone to accepting utter nonsense. The SCIgen website reports another incident from 2007, in which graduate students at Sharif University in Iran got a SCIgen-concocted paper accepted by Applied Mathematics and Computation, a journal published by Elsevier (part of Reed-Elsevier, the publishing giant that owns New Scientist).”

John, please explain why The Open Chemical Physics Journal should be listed at PubMed, a medical/bio website. And please provide us with a link backing up this claim; “What does it mean when a “scientific article” is not listed at PubMed? It means the journal is not considered legitimate”

In this comment here: 911Blogger.com” target=”_blank”>click here I provide a list of the 15 universities, libraries and research foundations that list The Open Chemical Physics Journal.

John, in the current and previous article you repeatedly associate investigation of evidence of controlled demolition with the ‘no planes-holograms’ and ‘energy beams’ hoaxes, despite the fact that these so called ‘theories’ are rejected by the Active Thermitic paper’s authors and the vast majority of people that part of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Please explain your reason for doing so, and explain how this is not another example of smearing by association.

Also, please explain any flaws in my arguments here, or in my deleted diary; you have not done so in this comment thread- reference something specific or quote me, and point out the errors. Why was my diary deleted; what did I say or do that violated the terms of service?

to my responses to the points he addressed to me, or to any of the points I made and questions i addressed to him, in my deleted diary and in my comment above. I hope you’re OK, John. I’ll check out tinyrul- if i bother to continue submitting to opednews, which headlines disingenuous smear pieces written by Senior Editors, and deletes critical diaries which don’t violate any of the terms of use, but embarrass Senior Editors by pointing out the lack of substance in their arguments, and their use of rhetorical dirty tricks. I’m gonna check back again around this time tomorrow, to see if there’s any response by John. I post at 911blogger.com as loose nuke, at nowpublic.com as Erik Larson, at TruthAction.org as rancho truth, at TruthMove.org as nornnxx65, at tpmmuckraker.com as transparency PS- i noticed i was typing too fast last night- re: “In this comment here: 911Blogger.com I provide a list of the 15 universities, libraries and research foundations that list The Open Chemical Physics Journal.” It’s not “the” 15; that was the 15 that came up in “the” first 5 pages of a google search- no doubt there’s others.

Still no reply from John. While waiting for an explanation as to why my diary was deleted, I thought of some simple illustrations to highlight the problem with John’s article- John has essentially said that because 1 Bentham journal in one known instance did not conduct a proper peer review, then not only is that journal a ‘vanity’ ‘pay to publish’ journal, but all Bentham journals are. By this logic, I can argue that because John Moffett employs a logical fallacy in an argument, that not only does he ALWAYS employ logical fallacies in ALL arguments, that the whole Moffett family always employs logical fallacies in all arguments. Do you see how ridiculous and unfair that is? John also said that because the Open Chemical Physics Journal is not listed on PubMed (a medical/bio website), then “the journal is not considered legitimate, or worthy of consideration as a reliable source of scientific information.” No link yet to back up this claim- but on the face of it, it seems the same as saying, if you go to the bank and don’t find apples and oranges for sale, then it isn’t a bank. Now wouldn’t it be absurd for me to make an argument like that- it would kind of diminish my credibility, wouldn’t it? John also has yet to address the paper published in The Environmentalist, or point out any flaws in Gourley’s response to Bazant (see links at the end of ‘my’ comment above, that was created from my deleted diary) Furthermore, what is the deal with John’s insistence on repeatedly associating- in 2 articles- investigation of the evidence that WTC 1, 2 & 7 were destroyed by controlled demolition (see the above links to mainstream journals, plus Journalof911Studies.com) with the bogus claims about holograms and energy beams? These are rejected by the paper’s authors, and have been debunked in articles published at Journalof911Studies.com, a site co-founded by Jones and Ryan. Is it that John thinks that theories about controlled demolition involving explosives-thermate-nanothermite are as absurd as these other ‘theories’, that he associates them this way? It seems an equivalent argument might be, “I’ve never seen George W Bush in person; therefore, he’s as real as Santa and the Easter Bunny.” I can respect the position of someone who says they’re not convinced by the evidence so far, that they don’t have the expertise, or that they’ve looked at videos of WTC 1, 2 & 7, and they don’t feel they can say one way or the other. Watching one of those videos with WTC 7 side by side with a controlled demolition, collapsing at the same rate, in the same way- it seems incredible that anyone can not recognize that WTC 7 was a controlled demolition- but if people are cautious and conservative, I can respect that. But that’s not John’s position. He’s not just “unconvinced” by the evidence so far available; he’s mocking the inquiry itself- he’s denying that anything worthwhile can be accomplished without “classified documents” and a formal, government-authorized inquiry. It is immensely ironic that OpEdNews.com would headline an article like this, which employs logical fallacies, false premises and insults- and ban my diary, in which I criticize the use of these techniques, citing quotes and sources, but don’t attack John Moffet personally- when Rob recently sent this to his email list: We believe it is the right thing to do to move OEN in the direction we want it to go– towards continuing to be a trusted, respected media site/ community blog where progressive ideas and visions are explored in a respectful tough minded way, and where progressive ideas reach political and thought leaders, so our writers not only get their ideas out, but also reach, influence and make a difference. This article was posted June 16; I think the comment window is 5 days.

4th reply; my first got posted much further down by accident, and I put my 2nd and 3rd ones after, to keep them in one place- perhaps John is sick, or somehow otherwise missed that i answered his questions and rebutted his accusations already. Any, for the permanent public record, i’m just putting in a last comment here (unless John replies) to direct people to my comments way below- and reading this comment again, I thought i’d add a few quick things to sum up, quoting John: ”I merely pointed out that the Bentham Group does not publish actual peer reviewed science articles. Did you go to the science web sites I linked to in my article? Of course not. If you had, you’d have to accuse a lot more scientists of “smearing” by association.”” As I noted below, I read the articles at the 2 out of the 3 sites that didn’t require registration- if John had carefully read my deleted diary (posted as the above comment by someone at opednews) he would have noticed that I QUOTED FROM and LINKED TO the Scholarly Kitchen article. And if he had carefully READ the Scholarly Kitchen article, he would have seen that the authors note that a different Bentham journal REJECTED the hoax paper after peer-review. As the authors note, the acceptance of a hoax paper by a Bentham journal only shows that peer-review is inconsistently applied. Unlike John and Rob Kall, they don’t SLANDER Bentham by calling them a “vanity” journal publisher. ”To smear by association is to say that because Obama knows Reverend Wright, Obama agrees with everything that the Rev. writes or says.” By John’s own definition he committed “smear by association”; he has said that because this one Bentham journal- out of over 150 Bentham journals listed at DOAJ.org- screwed up in a single documented instance, then this proves it NEVER does real peer-review, and is a “vanity” journal. Not only that, that ALL Bentham journals are “vanity” journals- even though they each have their own editorial review boards. ”To discredit a vanity science publisher as not being credible, and therefore cast doubt on articles that are published there, happens every day in science.” It may happen every day, but John has not discredited the Open Chemical Physics Journal or Bentham- moreover, his attempt at doing so by association was at best ignorant and likely disingenuous; his comment shows that he knows better. Rather, considering his previous smear article, which was debunked by Michael Green (see link at the top of my comment above), and the current one, it seems John has an agenda; he wants to discredit the Active Thermitic paper, but as he apparently can’t find a genuine flaw in it, and has no evidence that it didn’t undergo a proper peer review, he’s using the news about this other journal in an attempt to discredit the Active Thermitic paper- by association. ”Is the Thermite article listed at PubMed Erik? Did you even check? What does it mean when a “scientific article” is not listed at PubMed? It means the journal is not considered legitimate, or worthy of consideration as a reliable source of scientific information.” Yes, I checked; The Open Chemical Physics Journal is not listed in the index of a bio/medical website run by NIH; why would it be? John has yet to provide evidence that it should- and considering his attempt to discredit by association, I’m skeptical of any claim he makes. In my comment down below I provided a link to 15 universities, libraries and research foundations that list the Open Chemical Physics Journal. ”I think you need to read my article much more carefully, and read the articles I linked to as well. You should do some actual research on Bentham and then please get back to us with your findings.” Well- I’ve been getting back to you, once a day since your article was posted, and you haven’t responded. Your article has already been indexed by search engines, but the comment thread here shows the opednews community has seen through it- you’ve discredited yourself, and opednews has been discredited by accepting your smear article- headlining it even- and deleting mine, which points out its flaws. Darn shame, cuz if Bentham’s peer review and business model has deeper problems than thus far exposed, or if there are flaws in Harrit et al’s research, your (and Rob’s) ‘crying wolf’ here may have turned many in this village against listening to you guys, should problems come to light in the future, and you report on them. I checked my records- I’ve donated $190 to OpEdNews since March 07, and this is my track record on writing here: (4 articles, 568 quicklinks, 39 diaries, 1111 comments [56 recommended, 1 rejected]) Considering that my diary was deleted- even though I haven’t violated terms of use- and no explanation has been given- why should I submit anything again? It may get rejected or deleted- not for just cause, but simply for presenting facts the editors find uncomfortable to deal with. If you don’t care that you’re driving away someone who put a bunch of time and effort in here- that’s your loss. Good luck to everyone that tries to work with OpEdNews

I get home very late usually- I saw that both you and John had participated in the discussion thread when I first checked it late last Wednesday night; John had addressed a couple comments specifically to me, in which he ignored the points I made in my article, while accusing me of not having read his, or the articles he referenced- even though I had quoted him and from the Scholarly Kitchen article, and in the comments I quoted from NewScientist, which noted that a traditional subscription journal was also busted accepting a hoax paper. I’ve left a comment every night since Wednesday, refuting John’s accusations against me, pointing out the errors in his article and comments, and requesting an explanation of why my diary was deleted- he has not responded, so I’m contacting you directly.

Erik

PS- I’ve left a 4th and final comment on that thread, in which I also address your statements about Bentham:

——

Rob Kall to me – Jun 21 (13 days ago)

your diary was a response to another article. I deleted it and copied the total contents of the diary to the comment where you linked to the diary. No content was removed or deleted. \

It is the prerogative of the site publisher to determine what is published and how.